Anya Jacobs

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Asthma represents a major use of healthcare resources, with a burden that is unevenly distributed across the asthma population, where individuals suffering from more severe forms of the disease experience higher morbidity and mortality and lower quality of life, accounting for a greater share of resources and costs. There is an urgent need to reduce this burden by appreciating the complexity of asthma and exploring ways to improve its management in view of individual demographic, lifestyle and clinical characteristics (including asthma severity).

During my project, I will work with stakeholders (including patients and healthcare professionals) to develop an evaluative model for adult asthma that is able to track the long-term health outcomes, quality of life, and healthcare use and costs of individuals with asthma according to their asthma severity status and other health-related and sociodemographic characteristics, thereby taking into account the diversity of the asthma population and that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to managing or treating asthma is ineffective. The asthma population to inform this framework will be derived from the CPRD (Clinical Practice Research Datalink) Aurum database.

The evaluative framework will ultimately aid the assessment of interventions and tailored healthcare pathways, helping to inform stratified healthcare decisions in asthma management to improve outcomes for people living with asthma in the UK.

About me

I completed a BSc in Biomedical Science at the University of Warwick where I developed a passion for biology and health. This was followed by an MRes at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Wellcome Trust-funded Health Data in Practice PhD programme, during which I began to appreciate the huge untapped potential of data in solving a variety of public health problems. I have research experience in marine microbiology, genetics underlying insect embryogenesis, and regression modelling of hospital outcomes according to asthma severity status.

I am now a PhD student working on an asthma-focused health economics project. Other research interests of mine include astrobiology and space medicine.

Publications

• Jacobs A, Wu R, Tomini F, De Simoni A, Mihaylova B. Strong and graded associations between level of asthma severity and all-cause hospital care use and costs in the UK. BMJ Open Respir Res. 2023;10(1):e002003. Published 2023 Dec 14. doi:10.1136/bmjresp-2023-002003